In the summer of 2009, New York City’s Nanny-in-Chief and global warming crusader Michael Bloomberg was embroiled in an eco scandal after his SUVs were discovered to be routinely left idling for hours at a time to keep the interior cooled to the mayor’s liking.

Bloomberg subsequently pledged to adhere to the City’s three minute idle law, but there are ways to keep the interior of a vehicle cool without starting the engine:

Mayor Bloomberg wants to maintain his politically correct credentials on global warming — but hates to get into a hot car when he leaves an air conditioned building.

The solution his aides came up with could easily have doubled as a stunt on David Letterman’s show.

In full view of bemused tourists and other passers-by, workers yesterday performed what looked like a comedy routine: They hoisted a standard room air conditioner to a side window of one of the mayor’s SUVs parked in the City Hall lot to see if it would fit.

If the strange plan gets a green light, the units would be plugged into electrical outlets and cause less pollution than running the vehicles’ own A/Cs on an idling engine.

“Even with the vehicles parked in the shade, the temperatures inside can quickly rise to more than 100 degrees.”

Planet saved!

The idea is nothing new, but for now it’s only in the testing phase on the mayoral fleet:

Just last week Bloomberg had a reminder for elderly people not to get too overzealous about summer comfort:

When temperatures hit the high 90s a week ago, Bloomberg visited the Bronx Works senior center and called on New Yorkers to turn off “all non-essential appliances.”

“It only takes a couple of minutes to cool off a room,” he said at the time.

Plus your air conditioner could be draining power from the mayor’s air conditioner, and if Bloomberg should get sweaty and distracted during a Big Gulp stakeout, people could die.

Word is that if this experiment is a success, this coming winter, coal fired furnaces will replace the window air conditioners, allowing the mayor to keep the fleet warm without starting the engines, thus slowing the rise of the Atlantic ocean or something.

All phases of design, construction and implementation will be filmed for a special eco-hypocrite episode of the upcoming reality show “Hillbilly Car-coolin'”: